The present invention relates generally to the field of customized services, and more specifically to the problems of creating, testing, validating, and provisioning customized telecommunication services.
The incorporated patent applications describe a system and method for creating and executing customized telecommunication services tailored to subscribers' or customers' needs. The system of the set of incorporated patent applications includes a service creation environment for creating customized telephone services and a service execution environment for executing the telephone services. The service creation environment includes a graphical user interface which permits a user to build and/or change a displayed graphical representation of a desired service using "nodes," "decision boxes," and "branches." Each node represents a high level instruction for the execution of the service. The displayed graphical representation of the service is translated to a binary representation and stored as a call processing record (CPR). CPRs are transmitted from a creation environment to an execution environment where they are executed during call processing operations to send call processing instructions to inquiring switches.
The system and method for creating and executing customized telephone services described in the set of incorporated patent applications are described as being implemented in the Advanced Intelligent Telephone Network (AIN).
FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary AIN comprising System Service Points (SSPs) 30, 35, 40, and 45, Signal Transfer Points (STPs) 48 and 50, Service Control Points (SCPs) 10 and 20, and Service Management Systems (SMS) 60 (only one shown). SSPs are central office switching systems which receive telephone calls from telephones 12. Each SSP recognizes a variety of "triggers" within customer telephone call signals and generates queries to SCPs based on the triggers. The SSPs then process customer calls in response to commands received from the SCPs.
The SCPs communicate with the SSPs over a common-channel-signalling (CCS) network 67 that includes STPs 48 and 50. The CCS network 67 employs communication channels separate from channels used to transport customer voice signals and includes a packet-switching system. The CCS network 67 switches data in packets instead of allocating circuits for the duration of a call. The STPs 48 and 50 provide the packet-switching functions.
Each SCP is fault tolerant because each SCP includes processors connected through dual local-area networks (not shown). If one processor of an SCP fails, another processor of the SCP can ensure that the SCP continues to function. Further, SCPs are configured as a mutually mated pair in different locations. If an SCP, such as SCP 10, is disabled, its mate, SCP 20, can ensure that telephone service continues without interruption.
Associated with each SCP or each pair of SCPs is an SMS 60. An SMS 60 provides a support interface through which customer data and service logic can be added or managed.
The set of incorporated patent applications also disclose techniques for testing and validating CPRs that have been created at a creation environment. Testing of a CPR provides a visual indication on a displayed graphical representation (graph) of the CPR of the execution path taken through the CPR during a call processing operation. The visual indication is described in one embodiment as a red line trace of the paths connecting the nodes of a displayed graph. Validating a CPR involves detecting logical infractions in the processing routine of the CPR and identifying these infractions to an operator based on a set of rules and a knowledge base understood by an expert system.
The set of incorporated patent applications describe a plurality of fixed or predefined nodes for creating call processing services. Services can be created using only these fixed or predefined nodes. Although these nodes provide a great deal of service creation flexibility, because only certain nodes are available, service creation flexibility is limited to a certain extent.
To add additional flexibility to the creation of call processing services, the set of incorporated patent applications further describe custom nodes for which a user can define individual expression values. These custom nodes are beneficial in that they provide for the specification of individual user data; however, they are limited in that their functionality remains fixed.
Some service creators or providers may have a particular call processing routine that gets incorporated into many CPRs. It would be very efficient and beneficial to be able to instantiate that call processing routine into CPRs as a single node. These benefits would be further enhanced if such a node were indistinguishable to the system. In other words, if the system could process the node as if the entire underlying call processing routine were included in the CPR.
Accordingly, it is desirable to improve system flexibility for creating call processing services.
It is also desirable to provide for the creation of single nodes having underlying CPRs associated therewith.
It is also desirable to provide for the creation of a CPR and the instantiation of that CPR as a single node for use in other CPRS.
It is further desirable to provide for the design, layout, and instantiation of user-defined nodes that are indistinguishable from other predefined nodes from the perspective of the service creation and execution environments.
Additional desires of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.